In the Mourning
by theseaiswinered
Summary: When a traumatic death occurs at Degrassi, it's a shock for everybody.  Will mourning bring everyone closer together, or will it break them apart?
1. Chapter 1

Clare's breathing shook as she climbed down the steps of her house slowly. She wasn't sure if she would make it through the day. "Clare, sweetie? Are you ready to go?" Helen Edwards asked her daughter sympathetically. Clare nodded slowly. "I know this is hard, honey. Things like this always are. But I know you can make it through. We'll all be helping you." Clare sighed shakily and followed her mother out to the car. This was going to be a long day.

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><p>Clare entered the church with a heavy heart. She and her mother headed down the pews, sitting in a row close to the front. After a few moments, two people sat down next to them. Clare's father, Randall, and her sister, Darcy. They didn't speak, because they were unsure of what to say in this situation. She looked down at her lap, but her head jolted back up a moment later when someone began speaking at the front of the church, and swallowed harshly.<p>

"We are gathered here to mourn the very shocking death of Alliah Bhandari. She was a very loving daughter, sister, and friend," the man at the front of the room began. Clare looked around the room at everyone. There were so many people from her school there. Even people that had never even talked to Alli as far as Clare was concerned. Riley, Zane, Fiona, Holly J, Anya, Chantay, Drew, Owen, Bianca, KC, Dave, Connor, Wesley, Jenna, Adam, Fitz. Even that new kid, Eli, that Clare had met in her English class, was there. And then there was her family. They all looked so heartbroken. Especially Sav. He was shaking, and he looked like he was about to fall apart.

Suddenly, Helen patted Clare on the arm. "Clare," she whispered. "It's your turn to go speak." Clare was so preoccupied in her head, she hadn't even been paying attention to the service. Clare stook up shakily, walking to the front of the room slowly.

"Alli was the best friend I could have ever asked for," Clare began, looking down at her shoes. "She did some crazy things, and we were very different people. I don't know why we even clicked as friends. But we did, and I'm so thankful for that. She's the one who helped to break me out of my shell a little bit. She even got me to stop wearing that awful private school uniform to school everyday." Clare smiled a little bit at that memory. "Most of you probably remember that. I was really awkward, I admit it. But Alli exuded confidence, and that's what I wanted to do, so she showed me how to feel better about myself.

"Of course, we fought sometimes. No friendship is perfect. But we always made up, because that's the kind of friends we were. We couldn't be apart for very long. Alli will always be in my heart...and I will always love and miss her being by my side," Clare choked on her last words and made her way to the back of the church, bursting through the doors with sobs wracking her body. There was no way she could make it through this. Flashbacks of the horrible day haunted her mind.

_"Alli!" Clare screeched, running toward her friend and trying to grab her hand. But it was too late. She watched as her best friend plummeted toward the ground from the rooftop. Numbed by shock, Clare almost didn't think to call 911. But she pulled out her phone and dialed the number quickly. "My friend just fell off of the roof of Degrassi. Please...come help me," Clare managed to choke out before shutting her phone and dropping it. She sat down and wrapped her arms around her legs, sobs shaking her entire body. After a few minutes passed, she watched as an ambulance drove up to the school and took Alli's decrepit body away. Clare already knew that there was nothing that they could do for her friend. She was dead. Nobody could survive that fall._

_The doors to the roof opened, and a police officer walked toward her. "Are you the one who made the call?" she asked softly. Clare nodded and stood up shakily. "Okay, listen Clare. I need you to tell me exactly what happened up here. I hate to ask that of you right now, but it's necessary. Did she fall on accident?"_

_"...yes," Clare managed. "We were talking up here because we had a free period, and I was by the doors about to leave. She was sitting on the ledge of the roof, and as she was getting up...she fell," Clare explained._

_"And you're sure that's what happened?" the police officer asked. Clare nodded in reply. "Okay, Clare. Right now, I'm going to take you down to the office where I will call your parents and tell them to come and take you home. You shouldn't be at the school right now." The police officer had been true to her word, and Clare had gone home, refusing to talk to either of her parents. She sat in her room doing absolutely nothing._

Clare sat down against the wall of the church, crying into her hands. Why did it have to be like this? Nothing was ever going to be the same again. And to think she had to go back to school the next day...

Just then, the church doors opened and Darcy appeared. "Hey Clare," she said quietly, holding her hand out for Clare to take. Clare grabbed Darcy's hand and stood up slowly, wiping her eyes with her other hand and trying to compose herself. "I'm going to take Dad's car and bring you home. I don't think you can handle being back in the church right now," she explained, leading Clare to the car. They rode home in silence, and as they entered the house, Clare spoke up.

"Hey Darce, I'm going to go up to my room. I'd like to be alone right now," she said, her voice hoarse from all of the crying. Darcy nodded.

"Okay, but I'll be right down here if you need me." Clare headed upstairs and into her room, lying down on her bed. All she wanted to do right now was sleep away all of her sorrows.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

Hey, guys. This is the first story idea I've had in a while that I actually want to go somewhere with. I used to write under a different name, but I decided to completely change my pen name because I was sick of it. None of that writing was any good, anyway, so I just decided to completely make a new account and start fresh.

There will be some twists in this story that will probably turn out to be quite unexpected. And yes, there will be Eclare. I'm not sure when. I'm not expecting this story to be very long, but I don't know how long it will take to bring that into the story.

ALSO, weirdly enough, I came up with the title In the Mourning on my own. I didn't even know that it was a Paramore song when I first chose that title. Pretty strange, huh?

Anyway, I'd love it if you guys could review and give me some feedback :) I LOVE critique. I don't mind brutal honesty(but please don't be too harsh!), so bring it on.

I kind of feel like this beginning chapter sucked, so don't kill me! It will(I hope) get better.


	2. Chapter 2

"Clare? Clare, wake up," Ms. Dawes said, tapping Clare on the forearm lightly. Clare jolted awake within seconds, looking around to figure out where she was. English class. People were surrounding her, chattering mindlessly with partners. Clare wondered how they could all seem so...so calm and collected, after what had happened.  
>"Sorry Ms. Dawes...I'm just having a rough time, is all. It won't happen again," Clare stated, her voice hoarse from all of the crying she had done.<br>"Clare, it's fine. Really, I understand. What we're doing today, and for the next week or so, is writing a paper reflecting on our feelings about what's been going on in the past few weeks. I assigned editing partners, and people are currently discussing their feelings together before they write the papers. Your partner is Eli Goldsworthy, but apparently he's not going to show up today...so you can either work by yourself and have him edit your paper later, or join another group for the time being," Ms. Dawes explained.  
>"I think I'd actually prefer to work alone." Ms. Dawes nodded and returned to her desk. Clare sighed and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen.<br>_I feel...like my mind is disconnected from my body. I can't tell the difference between nightmares and reality, because it all seems the same._  
>Clare jumped as the bell rang, signaling five minutes of class left. She had been sitting there, lost in thought, without actually writing anything apart from the first two sentences, which were very relevant to her feelings. She was losing sense of reality, and sense of time. Nothing seemed normal anymore—she was seeing things from a distorted point of view. Was she going crazy from grief? Just then, the door opened and a boy stepped inside of the room. Eli.<br>"Ah, Mr. Goldsworthy. Nice of you to join us, with only five minutes of class left. What's the excuse this time?" Ms. Dawes asked. It was quite normal for Eli to be late for class, but normally he was only a couple of minutes late and didn't miss much class.  
>"Don't have one. Sorry," Eli replied blankly, taking his seat behind Clare.<br>"Normally I would have you go get a late pass, but since there's so little time left...Clare, would you mind explaining the assignment to Eli? He is, after all, your new English partner." Eli rolled his eyes as Ms. Dawes began to read her book again.  
>"So, Clare," Eli began, drawing out her name. "What's the assignment?"<br>"We have to write a paper on our feelings about what happened to Alli," Clare explained flatly. "We're partners because we're supposed to edit each other's papers when we're done."  
>"Oh," Eli said flatly.<br>"What's wrong?" Clare asked. "Don't have any feelings?" Her tone immediately softened when she saw the pained look on his face.  
>"Nothing," he snapped. Clare sighed.<br>"Look, sorry if I struck a nerve. It's been a hard week," she told him.  
>"It's...cool. I get it. It just...never mind," Eli said. "This whole experience just reminds me of something. Anyway, seeing as the bell is about to ring, we should make a plan to get together for this." Clare nodded her head in agreement.<br>"I'm free after school today, whenever," Clare offered.  
>"Uh...I'm busy until 4:30, think we could meet at the library then?" he asked as the bell rang.<br>"Sure," Clare answered and stood up, collecting her stuff. It was going to be a long day.

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><p>Clare began to walk to the library, her mind wandering. She sighed and entered the library, looking up at the clock. 4:25. He should be here soon.<br>Clare sat down at a table near the back of the library and pulled out her papers. She hadn't gotten anything done with the paper, but she wasn't surprised. It wasn't easy to write about how she was feeling in this situation.  
>She blinked and fiddled with her pen until someone sat down next across from her. Eli.<br>"Hey," he muttered.  
>"You apparently like to be on time," she noted, realizing that the clock was exactly 4:30. "Anyway, cutting right to the chase. What was your connection to Alli? I noticed you at the funeral, but I didn't know that she had ever talked to you before."<br>"I've almost never talked to her before, to be honest. I'm friends with Adam, and I go to his house a lot. His step-brother, Drew, was dating Alli, so we crossed paths a lot at their house. Adam also...wait, do you know about Adam's situation?" he asked, not wanting to talk about it if she didn't know. Clare nodded.  
>"Yeah, I talk to Adam sometimes. He's a pretty nice guy," she replied.<br>"Yeah, he is. Okay, so anyway, Adam was stuck sitting around with Alli during Drew's football practices, and they got pretty close. In a friendly way, of course. Anyway, he told me that Alli was probably the most accepting and understanding person about everything that he'd ever met. So I was there for moral support."  
>"My family was there for support, too. Which is surprising, since they haven't been getting along lately. My sister actually flew in from Kenya. She was there on a mission trip," Clare explained, a lump in her throat. She didn't like the topic on herself so much. "Look, I know I might be striking a nerve here again, but I've really been wondering what you were talking about during class today. With this whole thing reminding you of something. You don't have tto answer if you don't want to." Eli winced as she brought the topic up.<br>"Normally I would never tell somebody I had just met about this. But considering the fact that you're going to have to read about it in my paper anyway, I might as well." He looked hesitant to talk, but he still continued. "When Adam told me what had happened...it really reminded me of something that happened two years ago. My...my ex-girlfriend, Julia, was really depressed because her step-mom was abusive. I saw her on the rooftop of our old school, and I went up there to get her down. Before I could stop her...she jumped. It was so eerily similar to what happened last week, besides the fact that she did it on purpose, that I just couldn't help but go to the funeral. I don't know why it was so compelling. The fact that I needed to be there for Adam was what made me made the full decision to go." Clare began shaking as soon as he stopped talking. She felt like she couldn't breathe. This...this couldn't be happening. She ran outside, not even bothering to grab her things, and immediately collapsed on a bench near the doors, sobbing. She shouldn't have asked. Stupid, stupid, stupid Clare. Now the truth was going to come out. She knew that she wouldn't be able to stop herself from talking about what had happened after this.  
>As Eli burst out the doors looking flustered, he spotted her and jogged over, sitting down next to her.<br>"What's wrong, Clare? Look, I'm sorry if my story triggered any bad thoughts. I really didn't mean for it to do that, but—" Clare cut him off, wiping her eyes and trying to control her breathing.  
>"You don't get it. I lied!" she nearly shouted.<br>"You lied...about what?" Eli asked, obviously confused. Clare took a deep breath before speaking in a whisper.  
>"Alli's death wasn't an accident."<p>

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

First of all, cliffhanger...bum bum bum! Haha, sorry.

Second, oh god this is horrible. I'm sorry. This story is not turning out the way I had originally planned, and it's moving at a faster pace than I anticipated. To be honest, I'll probably be ending it very soon. I knew it was going to be short, but I didn't think it would be this short. Plus, since I don't like the way it's turning out, I honestly don't think I can work on it for much longer, so I'll have to finish it quickly before I lose the will to keep writing it.

Third, my writing got all messed up when I uploaded this. Meaning, the quotation marks were all gone, the spacing was all weird, and random stuff like that. I don't even know how it happened. So I apologize beforehand if there are mistakes. I tried to go over it as best as I could, but I don't know if I caught everything.

Lastly, again, I know that this sucks. I absolutely hate that it's going so fast but eh. I've never been good at slowing things down, so I guess I'll deal with it. Meh.

I apologize again. Plus, it's pretty short. Sorry again. I need to stop apologizing, man. OH, I ALMOST FORGOT. I don't know if there will actually be Eclare action in this story. probably keeping it as a friendship because I don't want to throw in romance in a story that's supposed to be about death. sorry if I got your hopes up :( and thank you to those who reviewed, I really appreciate it! 3


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